Johann Joseph von Radetz

Johann Joseph von Radetz (2 November 1766-5 January 1858), also known as Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, was a Bohemian-born general of the Austrian Empire during the Napoleonic Wars and Italian Wars of Unification.

Biography
Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl Radetzky von Radetz was born in Trebnice in the Austrian Empire province of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) in 1766. He joined the Austrian army under Franz Moritz von Lacy in 1785 and saw action against the Ottoman Empire (1787-1792) and the French Republic (1792-1800). Initially serving on the Rhine front during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1795), he later transferred to northern Italy and fought under Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser's army. He was promoted to Field Marshal after the 1809 Battle of Eckmuhl during the Napoleonic Wars and in 1814 won the battles of Brienne and Arcis-sur-Aube.

Radetz was shelved as the commander of a fortess in Austria in 1829 after making many enemies, but later fought under Johann Maria Frimont against Papal States insurgents and Italian patriots. In 1834, three years after the death of Frimont, Radetz took command of the Austrian army in Italy. The 82-year-old Radetz became known as one of Europe's most brilliant army commanders during the First Italian War of Independence in 1848, when he crushed the Italians at the Battle of Novara and also put down a Venetian uprising in 1849. From 1848 to 1857 he served as Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia, and died in 1858 in an accident in Milan, still a general.